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Syria chemical weapons team makes progress destroying munitions

Children play with plastic guns on the second day of Eid al-Adha in Aleppo on Wednesday. (REUTERS)

By Ryan LucasThe Associated Press

Wed., Oct. 16, 2013

BEIRUT—International inspectors have visited 11 sites linked to Syria’s chemical weapons program and destroyed “critical equipment” at six, the agency overseeing the elimination of the country’s stockpile said Wednesday.

A joint OPCW-UN mission is to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, precursor chemicals and production facilities by mid-2014. Syria is believed to have some 1,000 tonnes of blistering and nerve gas agents and the inspectors have to visit more than 20 sites, the OPCW has said.

The inspectors are being asked to complete a first round of site visits by the end of October, including verifying inventory and rendering production, mixing and filling facilities unusable. The next phase, of eliminating chemical agents, would begin after Nov. 1.

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Experts say it’s a tight timetable, especially since the inspectors are operating in the midst of a civil war. The head of the OPCW has said one of the sites is in rebel-held territory and that routes to other facilities linked to the chemical weapons program are near areas of fighting.

On Wednesday, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon appointed Dutch Mideast expert Sigrid Kaag to lead the team charged with destroying Syria’s chemical weapons and announced stepped-up efforts to hold a peace conference on Syria in mid-November.

Kaag, a fluent Arabic speaker who has been the assistant administrator of the UN Development Program, said she was honoured and humbled to be chosen for “this very complex and challenging assignment.”

Kaag will also co-ordinate international assistance that will be needed to complete the elimination of Syria’s chemical weapons, Ban said.

Ban stressed that “the United Nations has not lost sight for one moment of the wider tragedy that is still destroying Syria” and is “equally focused on reaching a political solution that will stop the appalling the violence and suffering being inflicted on the Syrian people.”

That violence continued Wednesday, as 21 people, including four children and six women, were killed when a minibus hit a mine in the southern Syrian town of Noa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

Opposition activists told the Observatory the minibus drove over a mine planted by forces loyal to President Bashar Assad. There was no immediate comment from the government.

The explosion was reported in rebel-held territory in Deraa province but army troops are also stationed in the nearby base of Tel al-Jumaa, which is besieged

Meanwhile, there were growing signs of division among those trying to topple Assad’s regime.

A rebel who claimed to speak for dozens of groups of fighters in southern Syria said they no longer recognize the authority of the country’s main Western-backed political opposition alliance.

If confirmed, the announcement would serve as a new blow to the Syrian National Coalition and its claim to speak for those trying to bring down Assad. Southern Syria is considered a stronghold of the moderate, Western-funded opposition that appears to be losing ground to Islamic extremists.

In a video posted Wednesday, a bearded man in military fatigues stood in front of two dozen fighters, some holding up the emblem of the Free Syrian Army, the main Western-backed rebel alliance.

The man read out the names of more than 65 fighting groups, saying they feel abandoned by the political leadership and “withdraw their recognition” of the Coalition.

Louay Mikdad, a FSA spokesman, said groups mentioned in the video are part of the FSA-linked local military councils.

“We respect what they are saying,” Mikdad said of the announcement. “We think our brothers in the Coalition, they should listen to the people inside, and they should open a direct dialogue with them.”

In northeastern Syria, heavy clashes that erupted Tuesday and continued Wednesday between Kurdish gunmen and Al Qaeda-linked rebels have killed at least 41 fighters, activists said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the fighting in Hassakeh province pitted Kurdish militias against rebels from two Al Qaeda-linked factions — Jabhat al-Nusra and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant.

Such battles between the groups have become common in recent months in the northeast, which has a large Kurdish population.

Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said that 29 of the dead are from the two extremist groups, while the remaining 12 are Kurdish fighters.

The violence came as Muslims observe the holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the Feast of Sacrifice, and underscored just how relentless the violence in Syria’s civil war is. Since its outbreak in March 2011, the conflict has claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people, and forced some 7 million to flee their homes.

Syria’s revolt began with largely peaceful protests against Assad, but later descended into civil war. Now in its third year, the conflict has carved the country up into rebel- and regime-controlled areas, with front-lines criss-crossing the country.

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